VARIATION IN ENGLISH PRONUNCIATION. 7 1 



original sound is absolute!}^ supplanted. The change can 

 move in only the one direction. 



This process is universal. Its operation in standard Eng- 

 lish is peculiarly noticeable because we have diphthongized 

 vowels. English long ii is not equivalent to the Continental 

 European long u because we have prefixed to the pure ii 

 sound the short /, whence u becomes iil, a combination which 

 is practically yoo. The diphthongizing of pure u into tu or 

 yoo produces the conditions under which palatalization of a 

 preceding / takes place. Thus, in pronouncing 7iature as 

 natyiire the purist is not maintaining the pure u sound origi- 

 nally proper to the word, as in natiwa, phonetically natoora, 

 but is guilty of diphthongizing the u into 'ift, which is one 

 step in English progressive phoneticism, and yet refusing to 

 take the next step, which is palatalization of the / into ch. 

 If his purism is based on history or etymology, his pronunci- 

 ation should be natoor. In short, the purist simply halts at 

 some particular stage of the development and rests there 

 until the inevitable progress of language makes his conserva- 

 tism absurd. 



That this process has been active in the past and product- 

 ive of improvement rather than deterioration of language 

 may be illustrated by such a word as Journal. Adopted by 

 us from the French and traced back to Latin we find its origin 

 in dmrnalis. Here the development of din- into jou- took 

 place on the Continent. Its Italian form is giornalc, in 

 which tongue gi is equivalent to English J. Having the 

 \vox(i Journal , then, with its particular application in mean- 

 ing, English uses also the form diurnal, adopted directly from 

 Latin, for the special meaning we assign it. This process, 

 therefore, produces two words where there was but one before, 

 which seems like enrichment rather than deterioration of 

 language. 



Like processes are and have been operative in all lan- 

 guages, the development extending and assibilating far beyond 

 the specific changes of sound above illustrated. Thus, Latin 



